Forks
by avatea
Summary: Edward visits Forks with Carlisle some... 16 years before book 1. Short-ish, new concept. Edward's POV! One-Shot.


So Carlisle would go. And I would accompany him.

More of us going would have defeated the purpose of this journey.

"Take care, you both."

Esme kissed Carlisle goodbye and smiled at me. Alice and Jasper had gone off to travel a bit on their own two months ago, and Emmett was busy calming Rosalie down. I chuckled at her thoughts. Someone had miscut her hair.

Well, there's the problem with being stuck in your current physical form.

But at least I wouldn't be bothered with her company for a while. And I was even gladder about that than usually- apparently, it had taken all of her poor amount of self-control to not rip the poor hairdresser's head off.

The flight didn't take long. The crowds at airports and in planes were too much of a welcoming distraction from the thoughts of my family- I was used to them- so I didn't bother the time.

I wasn't sad to leave London behind, either- it had been more for the sake of Carlisle than for convenience that we had moved there five years ago again. But we had all agreed to it; after all, what was five years to us? We could live in easier places for a long time afterwards.

Carlisle was slightly worried. Over and over again he hoped that we would be able to move back. Obviously, he had really liked that rainy place…well, for my taste, there had been an excess of carnivores. And they felt so important about _their _treaty and _their_ land…I comforted myself with the fact that we would only be able to stay for another, what 5, 6, 7 years? It would be nothing. Just another turn of American highschool.

When we drove past the THE CITY OF FORKS WELCOMES YOU sign, I suppressed a sigh. Not only would this place remember me of the wolves and their pride, but also would I constantly be reminded of why they had felt the need to ban us from their land. It was like that with the natives all over the world. It would remind me of not being human.

But Carlisle's mind grew happier and happier as we passed the dull old houses and the police station. Reading his thoughts had always been like looking into a too bright light.

I didn't deserve his attention.

Right now, he was thinking of houses that we could buy. He wasn't sure whether the old one was still usable, or whether it had been the victim of teenage gangs. But teenage gangs in Forks?

"Carlisle, what do you think of me walking to the old house? I might as well start checking right here."

_No, maybe let's meet_…, he thought, and then started speaking.

"No, maybe let's meet at the hospital instead. It's there where we need to check the most- alright with you?"

I nodded. He slowed down the car, but I was suddenly anxious to be outside, frighten someone, tell Carlisle they still remembered and then fly back to London. In that order.

I jumped outside before he had come to a stop.

_What is he thinking? Oh, sorry Edward. _

Carlisle shook his head, but closed the passenger door and drove on.

To my immense disappointment, nobody had noticed my dramatic exit and was running down the streets screaming "Vampires!". Not that I would ever be able to deceive Carlisle or the others on purpose, anyway. I would just check, not influence.

All the houses had a faint greenish glow to them, as if the woods slowly coloured everything next to them. Though the sun didn't shine, lots of people sat on their front porches or had barbecues in the backyards. Just the better for me.

But all I heard was trivia.

_Could someone pass me the…_

_Maybe I should go and do my homework… or maybe not…_

_Did I feed the cat?_

Some people outside thought they had never seen me here before, but no one actually ever remembered me as the pale, strange highschool graduate from 40 years ago. Good for Carlisle.

I heard a toddler laugh on a porch I was passing- I liked children, to a certain amount. Though they smelled even better than their parents, they either didn't think anything or just went for simple things. The only thing I couldn't stand at all was babies crying and parents wondering what to do, though the child was literally screaming it into my ears.

But this little girl just chuckled and watched her mother dropping a napkin. They looked like a picture taken from a family magazine- nearly too peaceful. The clumsy, slightly annoyed looking mother and the girl of maybe a year with her brown, curly hair. A man entered the porch and wanted to plant a kiss on the woman's head. But she stood up the very moment he bowed down and they crashed into each other rather non-gracefully. The toddler laughed out loud in joy.

I looked away and went on, reading random people's thoughts through town. But nothing unusal came to my ears- untill I reached Carlisle and the hospital. Though everything seemed alright when we entered the building, soon people began recognizing him. Did humans honestly remember other beings for more than 40 years and didn't put those thoughts away just because they _couldn't be?_

Because the very person would have to have aged just like them?

But then again, our kind stuck to the human mind. It was just part of what we were- so inviting, so beautiful to them that it might be impossible for them to forget.

_Do you hear something?_ Carlisle asked silently.

I nodded very slowly, more like examining the hospital, while we walked down the aisle leading to the entrance. Carlisle's expression sunk in.

_That's too sad. I'm sorry I made you come the long way with me just for that. Should we go and take a look at the house?_

I shook my head just as slowly as I had nodded before. When we had exited the building, I answered.

"It's probably still alright. I think we left too much of ourselves there for humans to be comfortable around it- anyway, it would be an information of no use whether it is alright. When we won't come here for another, would would you say…?"

He took a split-second to consider.

"Would you think that ten more years might be sufficient?"

"That should be enough, I guess."

"That' planned then. Well, ten more years, that's not too bad."

The ride back grew harder by the milli-second. Carlisle was happy. He was content.

And all I could feel was joy of not having to come here again, of going to a more comfortable place than Forks.

"Carlisle, where do you think are we going to go if we can't return here?"

"I was thinking of a fun decade up at the Denali's. What do you say? I'm sure the others would be up for it."

I forced myself to a half grimace, half smile. Carlisle seemed to look forward to this prospect. He lost himself in thoughts of endless white landscapes, him and Esme walking through endless white landscapes, and- Tanya and me. He somehow felt she would be good for me- or rather that it would be good for me to have _someone_ like he had Esme.

Like Jasper had Alice and Rosalie had Emmett.

But I knew I could never be happy like them with Tanya. She and her sisters were nice enough, but I had never felt a need to be completed by another person only half as much as the others wished it for me. How hard they must have wanted someone for themselves then…

Carlisle's thoughts were straying a little too far away from common sense for my taste now, though. He had implanted Tanya into our family picture, curled up on my side and smiling at me. In his mind, I was smiling at her, too. I was happy.

This picture of me how I would, how I could never truly be was too much for me.

I let down the passenger window to listen to someone else's thoughts just to distract me.

We were driving down the street I had passed an hour ago. Traffic had slowed down; we weren't driving faster than the average human stumbled.

There was the house from before again. I heard voices shouting inside, then the door opened and the woman stormed out, carrying a heavy bag in her one hand and holding the little girl in her other arm. She ran to the car, threw the bag inside and put the child on the backrow seats. Then she stormed in again, passing the man from before who stood in the door looking completely gobsmacked. He was thinking very quietly…

_What is she doing? What…I…but…_

The brunette young woman running outside again was thinking very loudly, however.

_I hate him. I hate this….oh my God, what am I doing? But I can't…I can't stay here….no, there is no way I could ever live in Forks!_

"But…Renée!", the man called helplessly.

"Forget it, Charlie!", she shouted back and threw a second bag into the trunk.

We had nearly passed them by now, so I had to lean out of the window to see them. Something about this argument had made me curious about how it would end.

The woman now threw herself into the driver's seat. The man, a Charlie apparently, stumbled down the steps of the porch and reached out with his hands as if to hold her back.

"Please, Renée, don't!"

"Charlie, it just didn't work out. I really _hate_ Forks!", Renée screamed and slammed the door's car shut.

The last thing I caught was the little girl's eyes. She sat there, on the backrow of an old Ford Sedan and watched the scene with her wide, chocolate-brown eyes. Nearly too deep for the eyes of a one-year-old. No thoughts rose from her mind.

I wished I could meet her when she was grown up, meet her and tell her that her life was alright, cause children like her tended to end up down at the lower end of the line. Children raised without love. I wished I could be there for her, then, and show her that she had everything she needed to lead a happy life.

Everything one would need to lead _any_ life, at least.

But then the traffic cleared, and Carlisle sped up again.


End file.
